


Our Choices

by wynnebat



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Acceptance, Family, Gen, Parent-Child Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-03
Updated: 2014-12-02
Packaged: 2018-03-21 19:57:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3703579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wynnebat/pseuds/wynnebat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur, Molly, and the twins.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Choices

**Author's Note:**

> Written for various challenges on the HPFC forums.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fred and George are always up to something. In his own way, Arthur allows and encourages it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the [Vocabulary Challenge](https://www.fanfiction.net/topic/44309/56914658/1).

Late in bed one evening, Molly turned to Arthur and said, "Arthur, I think our boys are up to something."

Arthur hummed and turned the page in his automobile manual. It wasn't exactly the one he needed for his Ford Angelina, but he thought it might do. He needed to tweak the engine just a little bit—

A jab to his side helped him remember his priorities.

Arthur pried his eyes away from the manual and looked at his wife in apology. "Which ones?"

"The twins. Arthur, this is important."

"Yes, Mollywobbles, tell me about it."

And so she did. The next day, Arthur knocked on the twins' door two hours after dinner and walked inside without a care for the lock. "Spot check!" he announced cheerfully. The boys, who were sitting on the floor between their two beds, glared at him. Arthur noticed they were covered in ink and surrounded by papers. He sat down onto one of the beds and glanced at the quills surrounding the two. "Well?"

His children shared a look, then nodded, then smiled at him. "It's a voice to paper quill!" one said, and the other said, "We modeled it on broomsticks." They went on about their new device, and Arthur nodded proudly even though a similar thing had already been invented. He also tried to feel angry, because they had no doubt used his or Molly's wand, but it was no use.

The way they stared at him, like they made perfect sense when Arthur wouldn't have even realized such a simple charm could go that far, filled Arthur's heart with joy. He hadn't realized it, but he'd passed on a bit of his inventor's mind to his children. Only they weren't interested in muggle devices—pity, that, but it couldn't be helped—but prank devices. He knew the twins would drive him and Molly up walls and into gardens with their little quill, but he also knew that hopeful, pleading look in their faces. He once looked at his own father in the same way, but his ideas had been turned away. He started inventing, tinkering, again after his marriage, but it wasn't the same. His decision, an equipoise between logic and feelings, might change his children's future.

He could do as his father did, crush their little hopes and ideas, better them as upstanding members of society. They might even use their ideas for more wholesome things.

Or perhaps he was thinking too highly of himself. Besides, the choice had already been made in his heart. Arthur sat down on the floor with them and asked, "How does it work?" They talked late into the night.

Four years later, with a clutter of prank items that made it impossible to tidy the twins' room, and with an extra toilet seat, courtesy of some Hogwarts bathroom, Arthur didn't regret his decision one bit.


	2. Paralyzed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Molly and her son have a talk about the future.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the [Random Prompt Competition](https://www.fanfiction.net/topic/44309/56691991/1/).

Molly had just finished washing the dishes after lunch when she noticed George lying on the ground in the middle of the garden, one leg over the other, hands behind his head. He was slacking off on his chores once again. This time, he wasn't weeding the garden like he should be. With an annoyed huff, Molly exited the kitchen and walked outside into the garden.

"Avoiding work, are we?" she asked, hitting him on the head with a towel. The surprised look on his face almost made her laugh, but seeing him on the ground just made her annoyed again.

"But Mum!" he yelled, covering his face. "It's summer! Can't I take a break?"

Molly put her hands on her hips in the renowned Weasley matriarch pose. "Would you like to talk about your horrible OWL scores instead?"

The younger redhead scowled, but nodded reluctantly. Molly sat on the ground after accio'ing herself a mat. "What do you expect to do after Hogwarts with two OWLs to your name? Do you think any employer would hire you? Honestly, you'll end up jobless and living on your father's money."

He flipped over on his stomach. "But Fred and I want to start a joke shop! Come on, Mum, didn't you have dreams when you were younger?"

Molly smiled and thought of herself at fifteen or sixteen years old. "I wanted to marry your father." Fred and George didn't even have marriage prospects, let alone future careers. Where had she and Arthur gone wrong in their parenting? Had it been something they'd done? But Fred and George had been raised as Bill, Charlie, and Percy had, and those three had stable careers.

"But other than that?"

"I suppose I wanted to be a singer. But that was very long ago. A pipe dream, you could call it." She had grown up with Celestia Warbeck on the wizarding radio, and even now, she could imagine her voice and band of instruments behind it, the loud music filling her head. Molly had wanted to be the number one singing sensation at one point in her life, to be even better than Celestia Warbeck.

She sighed and shook her head. She was happy with her life, much happier than she would have been had she become a singer. Why couldn't the twins understand that there was no chance their joke shop would prosper? Sometimes, when she thought about her two layabout children, she grew paralyzed thinking of their chances in the world outside the Burrow. They were so young and stupid and amazing (like all her children), and she wanted to see them lead happy, successful lives. Except, it seemed that Fred and George just couldn't be happy and successful at the same time.

She shook her head. "Up and with your chores, George."

After a token protest, George complied, but Molly stayed outside and thought about children and joke shops and happiness. What did she know? Perhaps Fred and George might still achieve both happiness and success.


	3. Identical

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It bothered Molly that she couldn't tell her twins apart.

The Daily Prophet flew in at exactly six in the morning, as Molly finished her first cup of morning tea. She took a few coins from a jar near the table and slid them into the owl's pouch, then took a newspaper from its bag. She yawned as the owl flew out the open window and into the cloudy skies, covering her mouth with the roll of newspaper. It came at the same time every day, and Molly had never in the thirty years she and Arthur had been married applied to get her mail at a later time. She'd been a late riser before having children, but afterwards, every hour counted. Now, even her youngest was off at Hogwarts, but Molly couldn't get back into the habit of sleeping late, despite the lack of work to be done. Arthur had left for work an hour ago, and she had the house to herself.

The front page had dreadful and dreadfully boring news, but the next had a review of a month-old Diagon Alley shop: Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes. And even though Molly didn't quite approve, she had to smile at the two grinning young men in the accompanying photograph. Oh, her boys.

It was only later that she wondered, which was which? Was George the one holding the "Voldemort Stinks" sign, or was that Fred, and George was the one pointing at the storefront Molly loved Fred and George equally, treated them equally, but when it came down to it, she couldn't tell the difference between the twins.

It bothered Molly that she couldn't tell her twins apart. They were her babies, her troublemakers, the two sons she'd always expected to either strike rich or live in her attic for the rest of their lives, but she'd never been able to tell the difference between them. Oh sure, she'd know when one of them would blame a prank on the other, or lie about his name; that look of mischief and laughter was hard to ignore.

She couldn't tell them which twin was older, because they'd always looked identical: same freckles, same features, same magic. (When they were kids, the twins had fought about it. But eventually, they decided to tell people they'd slid out together, no matter how often a furiously blushing Molly would correct them and say that was biologically impossible.)

But when she sat with one of them, and they talked and laughed and shared, she'd honestly try to remember who he was. Sometimes, she'd get it right, and he wouldn't correct her. Most of the time, she'd get his name wrong and she felt like crying because he'd never correct her. She listened to their conversations every morning for them to refer to the other by name, and she'd note who wore what, but she'd be the first to say there was no mother's instinct for this, no simple way for her to tell magical identical twins apart. She grieved, and, she thought they too might grieve with her.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> Complete; no sequel planned.


End file.
